Colonialism And Underdevelopment In East Africa

Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Politics - Topic: Development Politics, University of Birmingham, language: English, abstract: This paper explores the connections and gaps between underdevelopment, the colonial legacy, imported foreign practices, regimes and emerging economies, in order to understand more clearly how typical, general discourses on development continue to carry ideologically charged and historically transposed meanings. The term underdevelopment is primarily used to trace and define the retrogressive economic pattern within a given society and the corresponding postulates. Underdevelopment, however, illustrates also how the post-colonial fragility of the African economies becomes affected by internal conflicts, regional disputes, militarization and indoctrination of the masses. Beginning with a literature review and definitions of the concept, the paper seeks to investigate the multipolar problematics in Eastern Africa in the post-colonial period, with particular regard to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the Republic of Kenya. These two studies aim to illustrate and contrast the contextual differences of the colonized and independent types of countries, together with their common internal and regional dynamism that cause underdevelopment to be ongoing. This paper then explores and analyzes the aforementioned states according to particular indicators and provides evidence, in which a deconstructive comparison is used to trace periodical, pre- and post-colonial realities and the state of affairs of the underperforming sectors. Moreover it will then shed light on the continuity of underdevelopment, within the context of the theorization of the given amalgam of critical factors that have been redefined over time. The thesis concludes with a summary and questions the notion of unequal development on the African continent.

The classic work of political, economic, and historical analysis, powerfully introduced by Angela Davis In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the west and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the abiding repercussions of European colonialism on the continent of Africa has not only informed decades of scholarship and activism, it remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.

Mahdi Amel (1936–87) was a prominent Arab Marxist thinker and Lebanese Communist Party member. This first-time English translation of his selected writings sheds light on his notable contributions to the study of capitalism in a colonial context.

Monograph comprising an historical account of underdevelopment and the role of Europe in Africa from the fifteenth century to the end of colonialism in the 1960's - discusses africa's contribution to European capitalist development, pre-colonial trade, forced labour as a factor in underdevelopment, the economic implications and social implications of colonialism, etc. References.

Whether Africa is developed or not, depends on how and what one addresses. Development is relative. Nonetheless, the fact is: Africa developed Europe; and thereby became underdeveloped. Addressed academically, the notion of development creates many questions amongst which are: Development in what? Whose development? Development for whom? Who defines development? In this volume, the development dealt with is polygonal; and touches on politico-economic sequels which also affect the social aspect. No doubt. Africa is abundantly rich in terms of resource and culture. Paradoxically, however, Africa is less developed economically compared to Europe thanks to the history of unequal encounters, among other reasons. We cannot emphasise enough the fact that Africa’s underdevelopment is the price of the development of Europe which is based on historical realities gyrating around Europe’s criminal past wherein slavery and colonialism enabled Europe to spawn its future capital and investment. How can anyone quibble about Europe’s development resulting from perpetual plunderage of Africa with impunity committed by European treasure-hunting adventurers? This volume prescribes Africa’s restorative recompense as the only way forward for the duo and the world.